Heena Sharma Blog

YouTube has signed up more than 800,000 subscribers for its paid services in India since debuting in March, according to people familiar with the matter, vaulting it past competitors in one of the world’s fastest-growing media markets. The services are growing faster than rival paid music offerings in India, including Spotify and local players Gaana and JioSaavn, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the subscriber data hasn’t been released. The one paid service that could have more users than YouTube is Apple Music, which has been tight-lipped about its subscriber figures. YouTube has long struggled to to gets users to pay for its services, especially since the company’s main website is synonymous with free videos. But the Google division has started to gain traction, and the numbers out of India suggest it’s having particular success in the world’s second-most-populous country. YouTube sells two paid services in India: YouTube Music Premium an

Google has introduced its YouTube music app in India, offering local and global songs to a booming market that saw the entry of Spotify just a few days ago. The YouTube Music streaming and download service in India includes popular Bollywood Hindi scores and other local-language music, the Mountainview, California-based technology giant said in a blog post. The free service is supported by commercials, while a premium version with no advertisements costs 99 rupees ($1.42) a month. YouTube is already India’s most popular online music source via its free mainstay video service. In the paid streaming niche, the music app is challenging rivals including Stockholm-based Spotify Technology SA, Amazon.com and JioSaavn, Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s music service. While streaming services have about 100 million users in India, only a tiny fraction of that pays. Industry sales in India climbed 17 percent in 2017, driven by increases in online subscription revenue. Read More